October 06, 2011
Dana Milbank had a solid column today. He ridiculed Republican claims that President Obama’s health care plan is responsible for high unemployment. Milbank showed that the claims put forward by leading Republican politicians lacked any evidence and for the most part defied commonsense.
For example, one business owner with 50 employees claimed that he could not hire another worker because this would make him subject to provisions in the bill that apply to firms with 51 or more employees. However, these provisions do not take effect until 2014 giving the employer more than 2 full years to adjust his workforce to the desired level.
It is easy to show that the claims that regulation is impeding hiring are nonsense. If firms had need for more labor but were reluctant to hire because of regulations then we should be expecting to see that the length of the average workweek is increasing. It isn’t. It is still below its pre-recession level.
In short, the Republicans are just making things up when they claim regulation is impeding job creation. The media have the time to research this issue and explain the situation to the public. Milbank’s column is the sort of ridicule that politicians deserve for this sort of behavior.
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